History of the Critical Theory - Integral Theory Dialogues

Discussion

Nicholas H. Hedlund et al. :

"We present the historical context of the symposium series between Critical Realism (CR) and Integral Theory (IT), which provides more details to the general outline provided by Roy Bhaskar in his opening remarks in the Preface. We have chosen to provide a detailed overview of the encounter between these two schools of thought because we feel that it provides disclosure with respect to the method of exploratory-dialogical encounter from which the contents of this book were largely derived. We also feel that a more detailed historical overview can offer value in by potentially informing other similar initiatives. This volume — and its sister volume Metatheory for the Anthropocene: Emancipatory Praxis for Planetary Flourishing (R. Bhaskar, Esbjörn-Hargens, Sean, Hedlund, Nick, Hartwig, Mervyn, forthcoming, 2016)—are among the many exciting results of over four years of deep dialogical engagement between two communities of scholar-practitioners: that of critical realism, on the one hand, and integral theory, on the other. The books, in many ways, can be seen as the result of systematic exploration and inquiry into the relationship of two of the planet’s most comprehensive integrative metatheories and how each might be impacted and transformed through such an encounter; we were curious to see what kind of ‘mutant hybrid-offspring’ might be born through their cross-pollination, and how they might mutually empower each other with respect to real-world engagement vis-à-vis the complex global challenges of the 21st-Century.

Thus, this book and its sister volume can be seen as a report of the results of employing an integrative methodology of dialogical engagement and cross-pollination of two schools of metatheoretical thought in the context of four symposia over the course of four years. We will describe highlights of each of the symposia in turn."

(https://www.academia.edu/26063515/On_the_Deep_Need_for_Integrative_Metatheory_in_the_21st_Century)

More on the four symposia via [1]